Digital Union: Echelon
by RogueTamer2k7
Summary: Shortly after the D-Reaper invasion, many new teams emerged. Now one of them has to deal with the threat of a mad organization wanting to use them as weapons and the machinations of a mysterious man and his apprentice. Quasi-rewrite of Tamers: Vegas in the world of Tamers: The Empty World.
1. The City Tournament

Chapter 1: The City Tournament

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon. However, the majority of the characters in this story are mine.

A pre-reading author's note: This is a story that contains mostly original characters. However, the world that it takes place in is the same as Season 3, Digimon Tamers (whenever the characters from the show appear, they'll have their Japanese names). It takes place about two years after the finale of that show and portrays the aftereffects of the D-Reaper invasion on the rest of the world as well as showing a few concepts I haven't really seen in Digimon fanfiction before (most notably, the evil academy for tamers). Have fun reading and let me know whether you like it in a review.

Another note: the card game rules in this chapter are a bit closer to the Japanese ones than the American ones.

* * *

Images of various teenagers and their partners flashed across the screen. The first was a brown-haired girl with pigtails and a blank, almost bored expression on her face. She and her partner, a Candlemon, were up against a large, humanoid robot. The girl digivolved Candlemon to the humanoid flame, Meramon, who launched fireballs into the enemy, destroying it easily.

"Jennifer Riker from New York," a woman narrated, "Her partner is Candlemon and she's one of our strongest female tamers. When her partner digivolves, she can defeate an army of Champion-level digimon."

Then the images on the screen changed, showing a large, muscular boy with medium-length brown hair and an equally blank expression. Right next to him was a blue, tentacle-sporting alien digimon named Keramon. He digivolved Keramon to the knife-sporting Chrysalimon, who moved foreward, slaughtering a squad of robotic enemies used for training.

"Gunther Kaufmann from Germany with a Keramon. He is one of our top programming students and his partner is a good match."

For the final time, the screen changed, showing a tall boy with black hair. His partner, Ballistamon digivolved into Blitzmon and shocked a squadron of the same robots that the previous two tamers went up against.

"Dmitri Tartakovsky, a Russian tamer who is partnered with Ballistamon. He is one of our top strategists."

Then the three teens fought against a common enemy, a large robot intended to simulate the strength of an Ultimate-level digimon. The robot came down easily in an explosion of fire and lightning.

"The three of them together should be capable of any challenge you put them up against," the woman said, finally appearing. She had grey hair and blue eyes, appearing to be in her fifties. "What would you like them to do, Blaine?"

A masked man shrouded in shadows looked straight at the woman, emotionless. He had a white mask with the crest of friendship on the front of it and was wearing a hood over his head. Going straight to the point, he said. "I only have one task for them, interrupt the tournament tomorrow and destroy the three tamers that will be there."

* * *

A fog filled up the casino almost instantly, causing the various gamblers to stop playing at their slot machines. Thinking that there was a fire, someone pulled the alarm, causing everyone to rush out of the building. Everyone except for three kids and three digimon who came in just after the various gamblers left.

The three moved into the center of the cloud mass. The first of the three, Ezekiel, who was apparently their leader, revealed himself and his partner. He was fairly tall, with black hair and brown eyes covered by a pair of circular sunglasses. He was also wearing a long brown trenchcoat and had his black and red digivice out.

His partner looked much like a Doberman Pinscher, the champion level digimon was obviously Dobermon.

Behind him was his older brother by ten months, Diego, a slightly chubby guy who was simply wearing a blue shirt and some shorts. He had his black and blue digivice on his belt. His partner was a blue dog named Gaomon.

The third tamer in the group, Marika, was a girl with short black hair tipped in purple who was wearing a somewhat skimpy black outfit. Her partner walked slowly next to her and was a small, grey dog, Plotmon.

Their enemy was a massive white and blue insect with a flat back. Marika was the one who looked him up on her digivice. "Searchmon, Armor Level, its attacks are Search Jamming, Busy Status and Deflect."

"Interesting. Then this shouldn't be much of a problem," Ezekiel said in a tone with very little emotion. "Are you ready, Dobermon?"

"Yes, sir!"

"How about you, Gaomon?" Diego asked, receiving a nod from his partner.

"Plotmon?" Marika inquired of her digimon.

"Sure am!"

"Okay, team, this is our first indoor battle, so we're going to have to be extra careful not to destroy any property," Ezekiel commanded.

The three digimon charged. The first to attack, surprisingly enough, was Plotmon, who launched a carefully timed Sledge Crash, rushing forward and tackling Searchmon's head. Right after that, just as Searchmon was preparing to attack the group, Dobermon used his Schwartzes Strahl attack, shooting a black beam of energy from his mouth, damaging the large insect far more than Plotmon did.

Just as Gaomon was about to attack, Searchmon used its Hertz Jamming technique, releasing a high-pitched screech, causing the three dogs to wince. It even affected the three tamers, who covered their ears instantly. "Geez! It isn't our fault this thing was destroying the place when we got here," Diego commented, aware that the others probably couldn't hear him.

Then the buzzing stopped. "Great, we need to figure out some way around that," Marika said, going through her deck of cards.

Gaomon finally landed a punch on the enemy digimon, but it did little more than bounce off the enemy. Seeing this, Diego pulled out a card. "Digi-Modify! Attack Plug-in B!" he yelled, sliding it through his D-Arc. Gaomon finally felt a surge of strength and decided to attack the enemy digimon a second time just as Plotmon and Dobermon struck him as well.

"Rolling Upper!"

"Schwartzes Strahl!"

"Sledge Crash!"

The three attacks at once created a large crack in the digimon's armor just as it prepared to attack again.

"You've got him! Just one more strike!" Marika called out.

The repeated the same attacks, this time breaking the armor completely, deleting the digimon before it could destroy anything. As soon as the digimon disintegrated, the fog of the digital field dissipated.

"Good, next time we'll have to delete the enemy digimon _before_ it unleashes any piercing screeches. Any other observations?" Ezekiel inquired. The others shook their heads. Looking around, they examined the area that Searchmon completely demolished. There were parts for various slot machines and poker tables just lying around.

"Yeah, let's just get out of here before any of the casino workers decide to come back in. Man, I hate the smell of cigarette smoke," Diego remarked.

"Wow, I barely notice it," Marika commented.

"It is quite pungent," Gaomon said.

"Are you kidding me? It stinks!" Plotmon complained.

The group walked out of the casino and past the various Echelon agents that were scattered throughout the premises of the casino. "So, how about some ice cream?" Diego asked the group.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Marika replied. "That is unless Plotmon has any objections."

"No, are you kidding me, I never have ice cream!" the little dog exclaimed.

Ezekiel couldn't help but smirk. It was amazing how close the team had gotten in the past month ever since encountering Marika for the first time. The stoic boy at first found the girl annoying, but he now accepted the girl's contributions to the group. His brother was also starting to get a bit more outgoing as well. Who knew? Eventually they might become as well known as the Japanese team, though that wasn't likely.

Looking up, Ezekiel swore he saw a large digimon fly overhead. _That is strange. There haven't been any bioemergences of digimon belonging to tamers that I know of lately._

"So are we going or what?" Diego asked his younger brother. After not getting any response, the chubby boy waved his hand over Ezekiel's face, much to the latter's annoyance.

"I thought I saw a digimon."

"What kind?"

Ezekiel shrugged before following the others to the nearest place that sold fattening dairy products.

* * *

_That was close,_ thought another tamer on top of a large, flying digimon. He had no idea that there were other tamers in this area. Still, it wasn't likely that they would cross paths again.

Then again, for all he knew, they would be at the tournament tomorrow.

* * *

A few hours later, Diego woke up in the middle of the night, thirsty, so he got up, walked out of his room, and filled up a glass of water. He was definitely parched for some reason and waking up in the middle of the night made him glad that it was the middle of summer and he didn't have school in the morning. He kept on thinking about his brother's observation, about the potential sight of another digimon. According to Echelon, there wasn't any structural damage to the building they were in, so that meant that the other digimon couldn't have come from that specific digital field. If so, where did it come from? If this thing really had a tamer, who was he and why didn't Echelon detect his partner digimon when it emerged.

He just wandered back to his room after downing two full glasses of water, but not before noticing a light coming from Ezekiel's room right next to his. So he went and checked it out. His brother was still fully clothed and in a trenchcoat, sitting at his computer and going over what sounded like Russian verb drills. Looking at the digital clock on the wall, it was three in the morning and Dobermon was in the corner of the room, fast asleep.

After repeating a pretty nasty sounding sentence, Ezekiel noticed his barely-dressed brother sitting at his doorway.

"Couldn't sleep, huh?" Diego asked as his brother took off his headphones.

"No, I couldn't. We have a long day tomorrow with the tournament and everything."

Diego smiled. "Have you tweaked your deck any tonight?"  
"Actually, I have. I noticed a weakness in the form of a couple of useless cards I felt I would be better off without."

Diego nodded. "Well, you better get to sleep soon. Other than that, is there anything going on this weekend?"

"Well, Chris is having a few people over to watch a movie."

"Alright, that sounds cool. Maybe we should go after the whole tournament tomorrow."

Ezekiel shrugged. "I have too much to do. Maybe next time."

"Okay, your loss."

The younger brother smiled as Diego left and headed back into his own room. At least _he _seemed to be getting more outgoing. Ezekiel always pondered how he tended to be the social one until they got their partners about a month ago and then their roles seemed to switch around. Ezekiel looked at what he was doing, added a few cards to the flashcard program on his computer, and then shut it down before going to sleep himself.

It was going to be a long day tomorrow.

* * *

He awoke with a jolt. The alarm clock in his room was annoyingly loud but he was used to it. It was going to be yet another fifteen-hour day of training and attempted brainwashing. He was resisting it easily, but he didn't know how long that would last.

He got up, undressed, and walked into the shower that was attached to his dark quarters. He really wanted to leave but he couldn't and he realized that if he did, then his parents would probably be in danger. Then again, they most likely knew that something was up and would be able to take care of themselves.

They would and he knew it.

Upon washing, he got out of the shower and got dressed, putting on his blue school uniform. Everything at the so-called Tamer's Academy was scheduled meticulously and if the headmaster or any of the so-called teachers knew he was later for breakfast, they would know that something was amiss, so he hurriedly dressed himself.

He walked out of the room after getting dressed and was stopped by one of the teachers. "Hello, student, you will need to go back to your room and gather your things. You will also need to dress in civilian clothes. You have a mission today."

He nodded at the woman impassively and walked back to his quarters, making sure that every step was perfect so that nobody would suspect anything.

And then he got dressed, but not like usual. If he had to dress in civilian clothes, that meant that he was most likely going to a city in the Real World, so he was going to make his getaway. He was sure that his partner was probably going to turn out brainwashed, but he was going anyway whether the digimon liked it or not. He put on three pairs of each piece of clothing. It was obviously going to be far too hot for him, but it would be worth it.

Yet what after that, he knew that he would probably have to run as fast as he could, but where would he go so that nobody from the Dark Academy, as he jokingly called it, would find him? He had to think decisively. He had plenty of skills that would serve him well. Some were from before his days at the Dark Academy, such as his programming and hacking ability, something that the academy's courses expanded on. _I just hope this works,_ he thought as he finally walked out, looking quite a bit heavier than he was. There were other skills that he gained while at the academy, but those were for another time.

Still, his attempts at imitating all the brainwashed students worked out well, and with a blank look on his face, he hurried on.

As he walked into the briefing room to retrieve his equipment (including a device that would help the Academy locate him, something that he was going to dispose of discreetly during the mission), he realized this would be the only chance he had to make this work. He also realized that he needed help in order to do that.

* * *

Diego woke up at a little after seven the next morning and spent the next few hours working through his deck. At about noon, he ate lunch and realized that he hadn't seen Ezekiel all morning so he checked up on him. Sure enough, the boy was still asleep and in bed, wearing a t-shirt and boxers, with his sheets all but thrown off of it.

His brother sighed as he walked over and shook him, waking him up. "Give me a few more minutes.

"Uh, the tournament is at two and it's already past noon." With that realization, Ezekiel's eyes shot open and he got up out of bed, heading straight to the bathroom to shower.

Five minutes later, the guy came out of the shower dressed in his usual outfit and made himself a sandwich while Diego ate a personal pizza.

"So, where are mom and dad?" Ezekiel asked.

"Oh, they had to take Fernie to the doctor. They should be back in about an hour."

Ezekiel raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize that Fernando wasn't feeling well."

Dobermon walked into the room with Gaomon. The two were apparently discussing something, but stopped talking as soon as they walked into the room.

"When are we going to leave?" Gaomon asked.

"Just a little bit before one to catch the bus," Diego replied. "You'll go as a stuffed animal and Dobermon will be Ezekiel's Seeing Eye dog."

Gaomon simply nodded in response while Dobermon said "Understood."

* * *

The following trip to a building across town via bus went by pretty quickly. At the building, they ran into Marika who seemed happy to see them as always. They talked about strategy while walking into the building to register.

Registering their decks was a fairly simple process. They just gave them to a proctor who looked through their cards and made sure that they were all legal before writing down their decks so that the judges knew they weren't cheating.

After that, they had to wait for a little bit before the first rounds began. When they did, they checked the charts to see that Marika was on opposite ends of the tournament from

Ezekiel's first round was against someone named Andrew Laino. The judges couldn't get the pronunciation of the skinny blond guy's last name right and he played quite badly, giving Ezekiel an easy win. The following round put him up against a black-haired girl with blue eyes who nearly defeated him. He had a bit of a headache from the combination of staying up way too late and sleeping in and knew that was taking its toll.

Diego's first round was against a female Renamon specialist who was a little difficult, but nothing he couldn't handle. The second round was against an obese guy with blond hair and glasses. He was easily dispatched as well.

Marika's first two rounds went way too well for her. It was against some muscular black guy with a Hagurumon deck who didn't seem to get that Virus types were weak against Vaccines like most of the girl's deck. The second round for her was against a guy with data-attribute monsters, which meant she had to use the BlackGatomon line instead of her usual.

Unfortunately for Ezekiel, the third round was far tougher than imagined. He was facing a dark-skinned Hispanic guy name Eduardo Nevarez who was slaughtering him. First the guy played a deadly rookie and kept on changing his plans to deal with Ezekiel's strategies. Not to mention, his option card usage was quite annoying. He constantly seemed to be increasing his DP while Ezekiel couldn't get them below what he started with. The battle ended in defeat for Ezekiel.

"That really sucks," Marika commented in between rounds. "Of the three of us, I was expecting him to win."

"Yeah, no kidding, considering all the work he put into his deck," Diego replied. His third round seemed to go easy for him. Now from the looks of it, there were only three more rounds to go through. Marika's third round was pretty simple as well, though the matches were still getting tougher.

Ezekiel simply sat on the sidelines. He didn't know what do now that he was out of the tournament. He simply pulled out his digivice and checked it, just in case the other tamer was in the room.

It turned out that he was. There were three signals other than his: Diego, Marika and someone else. He couldn't really check without someone being suspicious or the other tamer finding out, but he could see the general area. Unfortunately, he had about ten players to choose from.

Round four involved Diego being put up against a guy named Mark Tannenbaum who put up a pretty good fight. Diego had to admit that for once, he was getting a little nervous that he wasn't going to win. He started out with a Gabumon and digivolved it to BlackGarurumon as soon as he saw that he was facing an opponent who started with a Salamon and digivolved it to Mikemon. Diego wondered what the evolution line was he let the guy digivolve him.

It turned into a digimon that Diego had never seen before called Betsumon. Actually, Diego didn't know if he even wanted to know such a thing existed and wished it turned into something like its female counterparts' ultimate forms. He quickly disposed of it with ShadowWereGarurumon once he saw it and it reverted back to Salamon. At that point, Diego had to wait as his opponent screwed him over with vaccine attribute monsters until he could digivolve again. After that, it was a matter of playing his cards right and then he defeated his opponent.

Marika's match was against a girl named Consuelo Ortiz. The battle was fairly drawn out, surprisingly. The girl she was up against had a Hawkmon deck and knew how to play her cards pretty well, using armor forms to their advantage. In the end, it was by sheer luck that the Czech girl won the match.

At that point, the person who defeated Ezekiel had been defeated by someone named Kyle Dibenko. In the next round, the guy would face his brother. Too bad Ezekiel was expecting Diego to avenge him or something. Then again, the thought of vengeance over a card game was illogical anyway.

Ezekiel checked his digivice as they got ready to play the second to last round. The fourth tamer was still there. Ezekiel narrowed his eyes as he tried to figure out who it was, but his headache was getting worse. He hoped that he wasn't getting the flu like his younger brother, but he couldn't guarantee anything.

Still, he managed to deduce the identity of the other local tamer before muttering. "Now, who's his partner?"

He set the digivice to the mode used to communicate with his partner. "Dobermon, have you seen any other digimon other than the two you are with?"

"No, Ezekiel, but I sense something, something viral."

That would mean the other tamer's partner was a virus. Then again, Dobermon and Plotmon were both vaccines and Gaomon was a data, so their group kind of needed a virus. Ezekiel would just wait to talk to the tamer in question after the end of the next round. He was almost certain to lose.

But he didn't. Instead, one of his teammates lost the next round.

* * *

The three tamers working for the so-called Dark Academy had their bags packed and entered a room where they were reunited with their partners. It turned out that the brainwashing methods used by the academy wouldn't work on Digimon, so their partners still had their personalities while the three tamers seemingly didn't.

The headmistress spoke. "Now, remember, you better fulfill your mission. If you do, press this button on your communicator…" The gray-haired woman put her thumb over a red button on one of her devices, demonstrating for her students. "… And a portal will be opened for you to come back."

"What did you do to our partners?" a Keramon, Gunther's partner, asked.

"That is none of your concern. If you attack us, we will be forced to resort to extreme measures. Our weapons are designed to destroy digimon of your level, so don't even attempt it."

All three digimon glared at the woman, realizing that they had no choice in the matter.

"And another thing: if you are defeated and found by the authorities, we will pretend you don't exist. Now, proceed to the portal room." The three tamers entered the room, an empty room surprisingly, and waited as the technician uploaded the program that would take them over to the other side of the world.

* * *

Diego shuffled his deck and his opponent did the same. Then Diego flipped a coin, calling heads but getting tails. His opponent decided to go second. His opponent, a guy with Kyle Dibenko was a guy who had brown, curly hair that was shaved real short. He was wearing a purple shirt and some brown shorts.

The two each picked a rookie from their decks. Diego played Gabumon again while Kyle played an Elecmon. Diego couldn't digivolve his digimon so he waited.

The next turn, Kyle digivolved his rookie to Leomon.

"First, I'll play the Dark Tower card and then I'll attack. You loose twenty points." (Diego: 80 points)

Diego simply raised his eyebrow and wondered how he was going to get out of this mess. He knew he was capable of it so he just drew a card. Unfortunately, the card in question was simply his digimon's evolved form. He knew that wasn't going to work. So another turn went by, another twenty points lost.

The following turn, he found just what he needed. "Okay, I'll play Field Negation to remove your Dark Tower card to the Dark Area and digivolve Gabumon to Garurumon!"

Kyle let out a smile. It was about time he found an actual opponent. Garurumon's attack power was ten points higher than Leomon's, meaning that for once, Kyle lost the round, forcing him to revert his digimon back to Elecmon. (Kyle: 90 points; Diego: 60 points)

It's a shame he already had his trump card in hand. "I'll play the Holy Digi-core, which allows me to search my deck and instantly chain a digivolution to Mega." He searched through his deck, pulling out his second Leomon, then a Panjyamon followed by a SaberLeomon. Then he shuffled his deck. "Okay, that means you just lost thirty points," Kyle said deadpan, amused by Diego's shocked expression and red face. It seemed that the chubby boy wasn't taking his defeat particularly well.

Diego just had to figure out a way past this guy's strategy. Unfortunately, his next card wasn't anything worth using, just one of his other rookies. And looking at the field, it didn't seem that the card would make any real difference against his opponent.

_Don't worry about it, man, this is just a game._ He took a deep breath. _Besides, what were the chances that you were actually gonna win this tournament anyway. At least you'll get a nice third place trophy, right? That wouldn't look to bad on my bookshelf._

Then again, he still wanted to win and go to state. Since they currently lived in the largest city in the state, he expected it to be here. Where would it be otherwise?

Unfortunately, the next turn, his opponent wiped out the last of his points, causing him to collapse onto the table, much to Kyle's dismay.

Oh well, at least that meant that he was a finalist. His last opponent better be good.

He looked around the room. There were only a couple people left. There was some Mexican guy with shades sitting down on a bench. There were the few judges. There was also some goth chick that he figured was his next opponent who had just finished her latest match.

This could be interesting.

So, the two of them sat down for their final match, Diego going and sitting down next to the other Mexican guy (or at least, Kyle thought they were Mexican). The two shuffled their decks after choosing a rookie form and placing it straight down on the table. Then everything fell apart.

Marika was about to draw her first hand when fog filled the room. The judges automatically thought there was a fire somewhere, even though it didn't smell like it. In fact, the air was kind of damp and smelled of mildew.

"Due to extenuating circumstances, we will have to declare this match a draw and both of you as champions," the head judge said before someone pulled the fire alarms. Already, shapes were starting to form in the fog and everyone ran out of the building. Everyone that is, except for the three tamers and their digimon who came in stealthily.

"You pulled the fire alarm, didn't you, Ezekiel?" Marika asked.

"No, I did," Gaomon corrected. Marika looked at him in surprise since the digimon didn't seem to have opposable thumbs.

Diego was busy looking at his digivice's radar. "There are three tamers in here, now!"

Marika smirked. "We're evenly matched."

"No, we're four on three," Ezekiel stated.

Diego rechecked the digivice. "Actually, more like three on two. One of the digivice signals is going away from us toward another one.

Ezekiel adjusted his sunglasses. "I hope he's prepared." The fog cleared a bit and the trio spotted two tamers: a black-haired boy and a girl with brown hair in pigtails. The two tamers had cards.

"Digi-Modify! Super Evolution Plug-in B!" the two yelled in almost disturbing unison, not even noticing that their teammate was gone.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Candlemon digivolve to… Meramon!"

"Ballistamon digivolve to… Blitzmon!"

"Dobermon, take care of Blitzmon. Diego and Marika, tag team against the Meramon. We need to get these guys taken care of right now!" But just as Ezekiel yelled that, the duo ganged up on his partner.

* * *

As soon as he got out of the portal, Gunther bolted, his partner following him in surprise. He checked his digivice and realized that there were three tamers in the room they were in and one outside, so he decided to run outside. Three tamers could take on the duo that he ran away from. He tossed the signaling device that he brought with him into the nearest trashcan and ran into the hundred-plus degree heat that awaited him.

For the first time in many months, he had freedom. He didn't care that he was sweating like a pig due to wearing three layers of clothing combined with the 100+ degree heat. He just needed to find that other tamer.

There he was. It was pretty obvious that he was a tamer since he had a large, purple, rabbit-like digimon on his shoulder.

"So, Kyle, you sure we shouldn't go help the others?" the digimon said. Gunther pulled out his digivice and checked the monster's stats. ViElecmon, Rookie Level, Virus Attribute.

"They'll be fine. The odds are even, anyway. We've encountered some academy freaks before, remember?"

"Yeah, Lucemon filleted them without even digivolving."

"Exactly. From what I could tell, at least one of them could reach the champion level so they should be alright."

"What are we doing?" Gunther heard his partner, Keramon, ask from behind him.

"Leaving. What does it look like?"

It took a few seconds for it to click for Keramon. "You mean you're not brainwashed!" the digimon practically shouted, getting the attention of everybody around them, including Kyle, who stared at him in amazement.

"Wait, you're academy?" the brown-haired boy asked, a trace of suspicion flashing across his face.

"Yeah, right, like I would ever claim allegiance to that place. Believe me, I crushed whatever pills they gave me and flushed them down the toilet."

Kyle couldn't quite believe it, so he pinched him. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Well, you show emotion, so I guess you are an escapee. I've never heard of an escapee from that place."

"I'm like the second that I know of. I had a friend that escaped about two weeks ago. Man, last time I remember being outside, it was winter."

ViElecmon, on the other hand, was a bit skeptical. "I don't like this."

"Okay, so what are you going to do now?"

Gunther just shrugged. "I'll figure something out, I guess."

"Well, in the mean time, you might as well hang with me for awhile. I'm probably just going to hang around the city for the rest of the afternoon before heading home and you're welcome to come along."

"Just so you know, I don't have any money."

"No prob. I'll just pay your bus fare. I have a pretty good allowance and I'm probably just going to go downtown but I'm sure we could go all the way to Boulder City if we felt like it."

"Well, you're going to have to tell me about where we're at. The skyline looks kind of familiar but that's about it."

"Sure thing. I'll tell you everything on the bus."

* * *

Marika wasn't doing well. For some reason, she was stuck up against Meramon. In the first few seconds of the match, the two enemy digimon appeared, digivolved and attacked Dobermon. The dog didn't even stand a chance and was quickly knocked out. So after that, it was just one on one.

The humanoid flame digimon held up his fist and shot out a flame. "Burning Fist!" Luckily, Plotmon got out of the way. Unfortunately, the puppy couldn't land a hit on her enemy, so the battle thus far has just been an example of attack, dodge, and attack again.

To make matters worse, Marika didn't even have her tamer deck with her, not even thinking that she would have to have it until later when a digimon inevitably emerged into the real world. Still, she could at least attempt to help her partner with a card. "Digi-Modify! Hyogamon!"

With that modification, Plotmon all the sudden grew a number of spikes and shot them at Meramon, who grabbed them and melted them, preventing them from causing him any damage.

"Digi Modify! Submarinemon's Oxigen Torpedo."

That was a mistake. The pair of airshots coming from Plotmon's mouth only seemed to make Meramon bigger.

"Meramon, this is going nowhere. Attack the tamer," the mysterious girl that was Meramon's partner ordered in an emotionless voice. The humanoid flame hesitated and then complied, realizing he had no choice.

"Burning Fist!"

"Marika!" Plotmon yelled, getting in between the blast of fire and her partner just as the girl's digivice shined.

**DIGIVOLUTON_**

"Plotmon digivolve to... Darcmon!"

Darcmon was an angel digimon who had a large red hat and scarf, golden armor and a golden mask covering the top half of her face. Using four wings, she floated, taking the brunt of Meramon's attack and holding her scepter.

"Well, Marika, your Hyogamon card was actually useful. I didn't take as much damage as I would have otherwise."

"Good. Now, defeat Meramon, just don't kill him."

"I wasn't going to. It's obvious that the girl we're up against is brainwashed."

Marika smiled as he partner moved forward and drew her sword. "Dancing Sword!" Darcmon performed a series of sword moves, damaging her opponent. Despite the pain, Meramon just moved back and attacked with all his might.

"Roaring Fire!" he yelled, unleashing a massive amount of fire from his fists. Darcmon created a shield by spinning her staff, dissipating the flames.

"Is that all you've got."

"No! Magma Blast!" The enemy digimon unleashed a torrent of burning hot lava, which Darcmon dodged while Marika ran as quickly as she could to get out of the way. Darcmon seemingly disappeared and reappeared behind Meramon.

"La Pucelle!" She yelled, sticking her sword into the fiery digimon. Meramon shrieked in pain before reverting to his rookie form. "There."

* * *

Diego was in a similar predicament fighting against Blitzmon. First, the two digimon appeared with their tamers and then attacked Dobermon. Diego had to act decisively to prevent the digimon from deleting his brother's partner. Thankfully, due to Gaomon's rubber gloves, the Rookie was at a slight advantage. Now if only he could break that armor.

"Card Slash! Attack Plug-in B! Card Slash! Speed Plug-in H! Card Slash! Digi-O!"

This allowed Gaomon speed on par with the Champion, who didn't seem all that fast at all. The dog appeared behind his enemy and punched at his armor just in time for the digimon to turn around. Then the Rookie disappeared, reappearing behind the enemy again, chipping at his armor.

Having enough of this, Blitzmon turned around again, this time, attacking. "Mjollnir Thunder!" This attack involved electricity surrounding Blitzmon, electrocuting any nearby digimon that just happened to be within range of the electrical field. Unfortunately for Gaomon, he happened to be it. The electricity struck suddenly, resulting in Gaomon ending up on the ground in a smoldering heap.

"Blitzmon, end him," his brainwashed tamer ordered without a single hint of emotion. The digimon hesitated for a second. That second was all that Gaomon needed.

"Card Slash, Stamina Seed! Card Slash, MetalGarurumon's Grace Cross Freezer!"

Gaomon disappeared in the second for a fist charged with electricity to smash down into the ground and reappeared just behind his opponent with numerous mechanical implants on his body.

"Grace Cross Freezer!" he yelled out, unleashing a torrent of missiles into the weak spot where he had punched twice before. The resulting damage and explosion caused Blitzmon to devolve back into Ballistamon.

Diego gave a smile at his digimon. "Good job, Gaomon!"

* * *

Ezekiel was ticked. Despite his stoic exterior keeping everything under wraps, he was seething underneath. These enemy tamers had the gall to show up and attack his partner. How dare they! And then there was the matter of the other tamer running away from the battle as soon as it started for no adequately explained reason. No matter. He just adjusted his sunglasses and waited it out as his partner regained consciousness.

It didn't take long for the fights to end. After they did, Diego walked toward the male tamer and held him up by the collar. "Okay, you're going to tell me who you're working for!"

"My name is Dmitri Tartakovski. I am a student at the Tamer's Academy on a mission for an employer by the name of Blaine."

That was when Ezekiel stepped in. "Who is Blaine?"

* * *

"This is new for me too as I've never heard of this Blaine figure before," a man said through a video feed. The man was middle-aged with short brown hair underneath a cowboy hat. "Still, you're going to have to keep an eye out for more of these academy freaks. They've been showing up all over the place."

The group of tamers was currently in a dark room inside the local base for the international intelligence organization Echelon. The man they were talking to was on a computer screen that had a web-cam attached to the top of it.

"Yeah, I think that's what we figured out. How has an organization like this been able to exist, though?" Ezekiel asked.

"You don't think we've been trying to figure that out?" the man asked. "What bothers me is that there are two other tamers unaccounted for including one that came with the other two enemy tamers. Tomorrow, you are going to have to search out those two."

"I know the name of one of them," Ezekiel said. "A certain Kyle Dibenko."

"I would have beaten him too if it weren't for those…" Marika was interrupted by Ezekiel.

"…meddling academy tamers?" Diego couldn't help but chuckle while the girl rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue at Ezekiel for saying that. Johnny Beckenstein just glared at the boy.

"Okay, your task will be to find this Kyle Dibenko character and find out his true agenda as well locate the other academy student and find out whether he's a runaway or a spy."

Ezekiel nodded. "Understood."

"Alright, I'm glad that's all sorted out. Now you'll all need to describe the battle in detail."

The tamers and digimon groaned at the thought.

* * *

After determining that Gunther wasn't a spy and that his digimon wasn't brainwashed either, Kyle decided that the guy could stay at his house. It was just a matter of inviting. Because of this, Kyle just got to the point. "So, we have a spare room."

"You don't have to." Gunther said in between bites of noodles. It had been six months since he's had any actual food and they were at a Chinese restaurant. All they served at the academy was really bland health food.

"No, I insist. It's obvious that you don't have anywhere else to go and there's no way you can go home since you don't have a passport and those academy dirtbags might try capturing you again if you do. Come on, stay with me tonight. I can just see my mom's face. She'll probably just think you came from the tournament and she'll just be glad that I actually have a friend."

"You don't have any friends here?" Keramon asked.

"Nope. Just moved here a couple weeks ago. Trust me; my mom'll be cool with it. She'll probably ask questions once it's obvious that you're staying for a bit, but well tell her everything."

"Do your parents know about ViElecmon?" Gunther asked.

"Sure they do. They found out a while back. I'd rather not go into any specifics. Believe me, they'll be fine with it."

"Okay, as long as you have a computer that I can put Visual Studio on and play around with it, I'll be fine."

"Oh yeah, I have a computer in my room. There's a content blocker on it so don't bother trying anything stupid."

"Hey! I wasn't going to try anything. Ever since I got captured by those academy morons I've just been dying to get started on a good old programming project."

"Oh, okay. So that's what Visual Studio's for."

"What? You didn't know that?"

"Hey, I just use my computer to play games and play the Digimon Card Game online. Programming's too deep for me."

Gunther smiled. "It's not that hard."

"How long have you been at it?"

"Since like the first grade. My dad's a computer programmer. He has his own business and everything. I told him I wanted to make video games so he showed me how to program."

"Have you made any games?" ViElecmon asked doubtfully.

"Oh, heck no. It takes a lot more work than programming to do that. Besides, I'm absolutely terrible in the art department."

Kyle looked at everyone's dishes. "Well, I guess we can just pay the bill and head home."

"That's fine with me. Wait, what time is it?" Gunther asked.

"Five-thirty. It'll take us awhile to get back since I live clear on the other side of town in a master-plan community called Summerlin."

Gunther nodded. "Can I see a map of this city? I have no idea where anything is."

"Sure thing. I have one in my pocket and you can check it out on the way home."

"Okay, that's doable."

* * *

"Their failure won't go unpunished," the Academy Headmistress told Blaine. "As soon as they get out of Echelon's jurisdiction, they will return to the Academy and be severely disciplined. We will also find the runaway and make sure that he takes his medication this time."

"That is highly unlikely and unnecessary," Blaine said. "After all they did fulfill their mission." Blaine clicked a button on a remote control. An image of Ezekiel and Dmitri showed up. Ezekiel repeated the same question over and over.

"Who is Blaine?"

The boy's voice echoed throughout the room.

* * *

A/N: How was the first chapter? Tell me in a review.

Appendix:

Main Characters Introduced in this chapter:

Ezekiel Guevara

Age: 15

BD: May 13

Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Dress: Orange shirt, baggy black pants, trenchcoat

Partner: Labramon (Rookie), Dobermon (Champion, Default form)

Diego Guevara

Age: 15

BD: August 3

Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Dress: Blue shirt, black shorts

Partner: Gaomon (Rookie, only form acquired thus far)

Marika Dvorak

Age: 14

BD: June 1

Hair: Black with purple stripes (naturally brown)

Eyes: Blue

Dress: Black shirt, black jeans

Partner: Plotmon (Salamon, Rookie), Darcmon (Champion)

Gunther Kaufmann

Age: 16

BD: October 17

Hair: Brown

Eyes: Brown

Dress: Grey polo shirt, blue pants

Partner: Keramon (Rookie, Default form), Crysalimon (Champion)

Kyle Dibenko

Age: 15

BD: February 19

Hair: Brown

Eyes: Blue

Dress: Purple shirt, blue jeans

Partner: ViElecmon (Rookie, Default form), Unknown Champion form, Unknown Armor forms (That's right. I have four of them thought up. One actually appears in the next chapter.)


	2. Diego's Offer

Chapter 2: Diego's Offer

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon. I do own the OCs in this fic, however.

* * *

On Monday, Kyle woke up a little late to a strange ticking sound. Upon opening up his eyes and sitting up, he spotted Gunther at the computer desk on the other side of the room, typing furiously on the computer. "Okay, what gives?" he asked, irritated, sitting up in bed.

Gunther turned the office chair around. "Hey, you said I could use it. Besides, I'm out of practice with my programming so I'm trying to design a workable game engine."

"Uh, could you not come in here again while I'm sleeping?" Kyle requested.

"Oh, sorry about that!"

"It's okay, just save what you're doing on my computer and you can come in after I'm done showering and getting dressed. Now, just please get out."

Gunther saved his project and got up, leaving the room. Obviously it had been awhile since he's had much privacy and he wasn't used to giving others privacy all that much either. Kyle's room wasn't all that much to see, anyway. It basically consisted of a bunch of weird posters and odds and ends along with the usual furniture. Even if a visitor couldn't figure anything else out about him from his room, they'd figure out that he was a geek pretty easily.

Kyle immediately got up and headed towards the bathroom. It had been two days since the tournament went up in smoke and the German guy that was now staying with him had yet to tell his parents the reasons why. Still, it could be worse. At least the guy was willing to help out around the house.

After his shower, Kyle got dressed and headed straight downstairs. There Gunther was watching TV with the two digimon. At least Kyle had gotten him to open up about that. Then again, it helped that Kyle's parents already knew about ViElecmon. The fifteen-year-old poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat down on the couch, munching on Crunchy Puffs while watching some random cartoon on Nick Jr. He didn't expect _that_.

"How can kids stand this stuff?" Gunther asked and Kyle shrugged in response.

"It's been ten years so I can't remember any specifics. My parents hardly let me watch TV back then anyway."

"Yeah, mostly they just watch the news," ViElecmon added.

"Pretty much that and Star Trek."

"Ooh, Star Trek. I learned a bunch of English by watching that show," Gunther admitted.

"I thought you learned English from the Academy," ViElecmon inquired.

"Well, they did improve my accent. Before it was so strong that nobody understood me." Gunther chuckled at that.

"Funny, I thought Germans were supposed to speak good English," Kyle chuckled.

"Hey, when all you learn it from is books, internet message boards and Star Trek, you probably won't speak it real well. It doesn't help that it probably has the most convoluted writing system on the planet."

Kyle finished eating his breakfast and took it to the kitchen to put it in the sink. Upon coming out, he asked, "So, you want to come with me while I go get some new cards."

Gunther looked at him. "I thought you were already the city champion."

"One of them. Believe me, I would have won that match if it weren't for your friends deciding to drop in. Besides, there's a new set coming out today and I want to be the first to get cards from it. So you coming or not?"

"Coming!" ViElecmon exclaimed.

"I guess I'll come too. I don't have much else to do," Gunther replied.

"I'll come three!" Keramon practically shouted.

"Alright. Let's go then."

"Can I get some breakfast first?" ViElecmon asked.

"You didn't eat?" Kyle asked in confusion.

"Neither did I," Gunther said.

"Me neither," said Keramon.

Kyle's scratched the back of his head. "Okay, you guys can eat and then we can go get cards."

* * *

"So, when are you going to find the other tamer?" Diego asked his brother as the guy was getting ready to walk out the door with Dobermon. This time, he wasn't wearing his trenchcoat and was merely tying his shoes.

"I'll go find him after I get back."

"You said that yesterday and you didn't get back until curfew."

Ezekiel shrugged, finally done. It was like Diego to constantly remind him of what he needed to do. But Ezekiel had a life and today that life involved getting together with their friend Chris and getting him a starter deck of digimon cards since the guy showed interest. The other Tamer could wait. "If you care about him so much, then why don't you go find him yourself? I think you've grown up enough."

"Um, Ezekiel, I'm older than you."

"Oh yeah. Well, anyway, I guess you and Gaomon can find the guy. His address is on my desk. See you later, brother." Ezekiel waved while walking out the door.

Diego just stared on in surprise. The only reason why he wasn't the leader of their little group of Tamers was because he didn't want the position despite being the oldest and being on the verge of turning sixteen in less than a month. Still, his brother's irresponsible behavior made him wish he would have grabbed the position as soon as he had the chance.

Oh well, this was an opportunity to one-up his younger sibling and it would be easy to take. All he had to do was find that stupid address, put it in MapQuest or something and print out the map. Then he had to go where it was.

Upon entering his brother's immaculate room, Diego searched the trenchcoat-wearing boy's desk for the address. He found it pretty quickly, went to the computer room, entered the information and gaped at the location of the guy's house. "Summerlin, huh? Great, it looks like it's gonna be another bus ride. Oh well, at least it's not Henderson. Better yet, at least it's not Boulder City or something, not that he had ever gone there. "Hey, Gaomon!"

The blue dog ran into the room. "Yes, Diego?"

"Want to go on a little trip across town?"

* * *

The trip across town went surprisingly well. It helped that Gaomon had the appearance of a stuffed toy and that Diego could make up a stupid story about giving it to his girlfriend as a gift for the two-month anniversary of their first date. Never mind that Diego had never had a girlfriend and didn't know many girls his age other than the ones at school and Marika. As it was, his parents would never let him date until he turned eighteen and Marika was just a bit too weird for his tastes.

For some reason, all he could think of when he thought of Marika was how she had never invited him or Ezekiel to her house. He could say that they were friends, even though the dark girl didn't ever ask to go hang out with any of his and Ezekiel's group. Maybe he would ask her about that sometime.

Then again, where _did_ that girl live?

Diego finished his bus ride in a commercial district right by where Kyle lived, carrying an annoyingly heavy Gaomon out of the large metal deathtrap and almost landing face first onto the sidewalk. Seriously, he was starting to have enough of those vehicles. How he wished that his partner would digivolve into a Garurumon or something. Or that his sixteenth birthday would come and he'd get a car for all those good grades over the years. He already had his permit.

As soon as the bus left, he heard voices coming from around the corner and moved out of the way just in time for a couple of guys with what looked like stuffed animals walk right past him. _Wait a second! _It dawned on him that the black-haired guy with the purple Elecmon toy was Kyle. It also dawned on him that those weren't stuffed toys, those were digimon. Diego was expecting a long, drawn out search for the guy, probably having to deal with some sort of rogue tamer just to get to his house when the guy just walked right on by.

"Hey! Wait up!"

Gaomon looked at his partner with a puzzled expression on his face. "What has gotten into you, master?" he whispered to himself.

Kyle turned around as soon as he heard someone yell out to wait up. Suddenly, he saw some chubby lunatic that he didn't know running towards him with a D-Arc in his had. _Oh drat, another tamer!_ "What is it?"

"You're a digimon tamer too, right?"

"How do you know this isn't a stuffed toy?"

"Oh, just admit you're a tamer, Kyle!" ViElecmon said, giving away his cover.

"Vi!"

"Hey, here's the thing, it's pretty obvious that we're digimon. The whole stuffed toy thing is a joke. Oh, and my viral instincts are starting to get the better of me since yesterday when you had to run away from that battle. Think about it! If you join up with the other tamers, you can send me into battle! It's like a drug without the side effects!"

Kyle rolled his eyes and faced Diego, noticing the Gaomon walking up beside him. "Are you really here to get me to join your team of tamers?"

"If you want. To me it sounds like your partner wants to join," the portly boy responded.

"I'd say go for it," Gunther said. "Oh, and I'll join."

Kyle turned away. He really wasn't expecting this. Then it hit him where he saw Diego last. "Wait a sec. You're that Mexican kid I beat in the semi-final round at the tournament a couple days ago."

"Uh, I'm not…"

"Oh, sure you are. You had a Gabumon deck or something and you couldn't get the cards to play in your favor."

"That's not what I meant. I was just about to say that I wasn't…"

"I'll think about joining your team, but don't be surprised if I don't."

A long silence followed until Gunther broke it. "What happened?"

"It's a long story. We better get going." Kyle just walked away, heading towards the store they were going to. Diego and Gunther just followed at a distance and talked for a second.

"Is Kyle usually this way?" the black-haired boy asked.

"No, he's usually really friendly and outgoing. You probably just hit a nerve," Gunther replied.

"Yeah, he let us stay at his house. It's all big and stuff," Keramon said.

"Then again, perhaps something happened in his past that gave him second thoughts about becoming a tamer," Gaomon suggested.

"Maybe," Gunther acknowledged. "He never talked about anything going wrong where he was from and according to him; he had a good relationship with the two other tamers there."

"Whatever it is, I just hope he can get over it."

* * *

Within a few minutes, the group was at the store they were headed to, a simple game shop that apparently sold some of the cheapest booster packs and starter decks in town. They were also among the first to get the new set that had just been released.

"Howdy, howdy!" called the shop-owner, a man in his mid twenties with blond hair that was thinning slightly. "I hear you almost won the tournament the other day," he conversed casually with Kyle.

"Oh, yeah, if it weren't for a fire starting in the place, I would have beaten that girl." Kyle put a ten dollar bill on the counter. "So, any chance I can have a few of the new boosters?"

"Certainly," the shop-owner said, grabbing a booster box and pulling out several packs and putting them on the counter. "Alright, that will be $9.63." The man took the ten, put it in the cash register, and then counted out the change. "So, what do you think you have? I hear the new set has some interesting cards in it."

Kyle opened the first pack. Elsewhere, the other two guys were looking around at the various rare cards. "Say, has Gaomon been made into a card?" Gunther asked Diego.

"Not that I know of."

"Oh, and there's another thing I have to talk to you about."

"And that is…"

"My immigration status. I'm not really here legally." Diego's eyes practically bugged out.

"Alright, now onto the third pack," Kyle said, working his way into the foil that covered the set of cards. "The Human Spirit of Fire. I'm not sure how I'm going to use that. Strabimon looks like an interesting digimon that I haven't seen before, though I already have enough rookies. Cerberumon would probably work if I had a Labramon deck." Upon looking at the next card, Kyle paused, shaking slightly. "Uh, is there any way I could sell this card?"

The shop-keeper looked at it for a second. "The name is in foil but that just means it's slightly rare. What don't you like about it?"

"Oh, nothing," Kyle replied, obviously lying.

"I mean, it seems you keep all your other cards for collection purposes. Why not this one?"

Kyle turned red. He didn't want to tell anyone about that one time…

_All he saw were eyes. The digimon in question seemed covered in them despite his humanoid appearance. There were eyes used as shoulder pads, a giant eye on his chest, eyes for knees and eyes on his feet. Anything that didn't have eyes was black armor._

_ It was the day his partner was almost killed. The partner of one of his friends was almost deleted as well._

_ "Grand Cross!" Lucemon yelled, bombarding the warrior digimon with an attack that appeared similar to a group of planets arranged in a pattern. Try as he might, the warrior couldn't completely block the attack from the twelve-winged angelic rookie who had the strength to take out megas._

Kyle was brought back to reality by his friend's voice. "Hey, Kyle, anything wrong?" Gunther asked.

"Oh, nothing. Just got a card I didn't like. Either of you like to trade for a Duskmon?"

Gunther smiled. "Sorry, I don't have any cards. The Dark Academy took them all away."

"You were kidnapped by the Academy?" Diego asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, that's how I got in this country. I ran away from them yesterday to escape after months of resisting their brainwashing. Worst six months of my life, if I say so myself. Believe me, I don't recommend that school for education."

Diego looked at Kyle for a second. Somehow the two trusted each other. Then again, Diego didn't really know Kyle.

"I'll look at that card," the black-haired boy said, taking it. _Duskmon, Variable Attribute, A-540, B – 510, C – 400. _"Looks like a pretty good card."

"You want it," Kyle smiled uneasily.

"Sure. What do you want in return?"

"Oh, nothing. It's free."

Diego looked disbelievingly at him. "There something you're not telling us?"

"Oh, nothing at all. I just encountered a Duskmon once. It wasn't an experience worth remembering, believe me."

"Hmm," Diego looked at the card. "Sure thing. Worst comes to worst, it'll just be a collector's item and go in my card folder." They paused for a couple seconds. "You sure there's nothing else wrong?"

"I'm sure."

Diego's next sentence was interrupted by a series of loud beeps from his digivice. He pulled it off his belt and checked it. "Looks like there's a bioemergence nearby. Let's go!"

"Alright, just beware that the academy traps tamers with fake emergences," Gunther told the duo before they all walked out the door to pick up their digimon and go after the emergence. It was sweltering outside, so the digimon didn't actually appreciate the great outdoors.

* * *

The group's arrival at the location of the bioemergence was timely, since it appeared that the digimon had just realized. The emergence point was a detention basin filled with grass and fog, the latter thanks to the digimon inside. Now the group had to descend.

"Man, this is weird. What is this giant hole in the ground for?" Gunther asked as the trio and their digimon walked up to the edge.

"It's a detention basin and it's here so that whenever it rains, the city doesn't flood," Diego explained. "Basically, since we're in the middle of the desert, the ground doesn't absorb the moisture so easily so they set these things up and connected them to the various drainage ditches and washes that go though town. In the meantime, they just serve as soccer fields"

"Hm, weird."

After a short pause, Diego said "Alright, let's get this over with."

"Yes, Diego!" Gaomon exclaimed as the two jumped down. Gunther was about to go down too when he realized that Kyle was just standing there.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

"You go right on ahead," Kyle replied, a concerned look coming across his face. Gunther gave a slight nod and jumped on down, followed by Keramon.

"You know, it's not likely that what happened in the last battle we had will happen again," ViElecmon said.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Oh, believe me, you've changed. You've grown up and you're no longer the goggle-wearing idiot you were when I first met you. In fact, I've got to say that you learned your lesson." ViElecmon gave his tamer a smile. Kyle, in turn, smirked back.

"Then I guess we'll do this. However, there's no way I'm going to force digivolution on you or even risk it." The brown-haired boy pulled his tamer deck out of his pocket. "It's amazing I still have this. So, what armor form do you want this time?"

"Give me courage," ViElecmon said in response.

"A serving of BurningConejomon, coming up."

A card spun through the air, barely being caught by Kyle, the green back of the card facing away from him. With that, he lifted the card though the air. "Digi-Modify!" He looked at the card, the Digimental of Courage. "Armor Digivolution activate!"

Diego knew what to expect upon landing inside the digital field. However, the first thoughts that ran through his mind didn't involve what digimon they were most likely going to face or how to defeat it. Instead, his thoughts were somewhere along the lines of _boy, is it humid in here._

It certainly didn't help that it was nearing 100 degrees outside or that there was a large amount of water vapor in the field. Of course, Diego pushed all that aside and told him that he would be able to get out of the heat soon.

"Okay, Keramon, Digivolve!" Gunther ordered, holding out his digivive. One advantage the D-Arcs gained since the first team of tamers in Japan got theirs was that digivolution was now built into the digivice thanks to a very nice little upgrade. They just had to digivolve their partners for the first time and, voila, they could digivolve to Champion pretty much whenever they wanted to.

"Keramon digivolve to… Chrysalimon!" Keramon's new form was that of a large blue cocoon with large, beady eyes and long string-like appendages that had sharp tips. The knife-like tips were especially useful when a pair of shuriken attached to red coils came forward, aimed for the digimon. Thankfully, Chrysalimon was ready for the attack and mearly blocked the shuriken that were headed for him and then proceeded to try and slice into the red appendage with his knife, only for the appendage to be pulled back just in the nick of time.

Then it came forward. It had a blue cloth over its face as well as blue clothing. It also had a pair of yellow-green leaves over its shoulders and a large shuriken on its back. Diego could easily guess what it was when he pulled out his digivice to check.

_Shurimon_

_ Mutant Digimon_

_ Armor Level_

_ Attribute: Virus_

"A black Shurimon. What will they think of next?" Diego asked no one in particular as he pulled out a card. Speed would be advantageous against a ninja, so that was just what he used. "Digi-Modify, Hi-Speed Plug-in H!"

After that, Gaomon ran forward at a far higher velocity to attack the enemy digimon, but Shurimon's speed was still higher than his and so the dog's fist didn't even touch the enemy digimon who narrowly evaded and then sprinted forward.

"It's obvious what the true source of your power is, little dog," Shurimon said. "You're owned by that human. Without him, you're just another rookie, a far cry from a worthy opponent."

After saying that, the ninja hit Gaomon across the field and then sprinted forward, meeting each of Chrysalimon's blades with his own before spotting a fire blast coming at him, forcing him to dodge.

"This is unexpected. Hmm… I've never seen a digimon of your kind before," Shurimon remarked as he eyed his new opponent. The digimon had the shape of a muscular humanoid, but had purple and yellow fur all over his body. That hair was covered with armor bearing flame designs and fitting over the digimon's body. Finally, the chest-plate had the Crest of Courage on it. In addition, it had Elecmon's ears and head, covered in a mask that again had the flame design on it. "You're another armor I see."

"Yeah? What of it."

This was definitely an unfamiliar digimon to both Diego and Gunther. The latter checked with his digivice.

_BurningConejomon_

_ Beast Digimon_

_ Armor Level_

_ Attribute: Virus_

_ Attacks: Zhgúchij kulák (Burning Fist), Porýv Vulkána (Volcano Blast)_

Gunther looked at the attack names. _Okay, the second part of the digimon's name is in Spanish but his attacks are in Russian. What gives? _His thoughts were interrupted when Chrysalimon ended up crashing into him. "Okay, that's the last time I lose myself in thought in the middle of battle."

"It better be," Chrysalimon said in response while trying to get up. "You know, for an Armor, this guy's pretty tough."

Shurimon was definitely enjoying this battle, even though he wanted that annoying little Gaomon to just go away. At least he could just hit him away with his shuriken. The furry in armor, on the other hand, had an elemental advantage against him.

"_Zhgúchij kulak!_" BurningConejomon yelled, charging his fist and aiming it at Shurimon, the ninja barely getting away and feeling the singeing heat against his plant-like skin. Shurimon just jumped back and shot the shuriken on his left hand, striking his enemy on the armor. It turned out the armor was slightly chipped from that but nothing the humanoid rabbit couldn't handle.

"_Porýv Vulkána!" _the digimon yelled, stepping into the ground, causing the earth beneath him to split and shoot upa large amount of molten rock at his ninja opponent, but the attack took time to execute and Shurimon got out of the way just in time for a plume of lava to nearly fry him.

_I definitely need to take out the rabbit first, _Shurimon thought as he headed straight for the tamed digimon as quickly as possible, appearing behind him and aiming for the throat. However, the rabbit ended up moving out of the way of Chrysalimon's attacks at the same time as Shurimon's attempted decapitation and the ninja only managed to graze against the neck just enough to cause large amounts of pain and some bleeding, forcing de-digivolution back into ViElecmon.

Now that the rabbit was no longer a worthy threat and was writhing in pain on the ground, Shurimon merely kicked him out of the way, not caring to kill him since he wasn't a hired bounty and wouldn't prove a challenge. Of course, the data could be useful. That settled it and just as the ninja deflected Chrysalimon's attacks, he turned around to face the small rodent and saw one of the humans running off with him.

That was when the Shurimon got the great idea of absorbing the human's data as well. So, assuming that humans could be loaded much like digimon, he shot a shuriken towards Diego.

"Master!" Gaomon yelled, running as quickly as he could while Diego's digivice shined and the Shuriken inched closer, Chrysalimon attempting to deflect it as well.

"Gaomon digivolve to… Gaogamon!"

The dog's new quadruped form was far faster than the original and he managed to reach his tamer and get him out of the way well before the shuriken would have reached him. The new form was that of a blue wolf with a white mane and red gloves along his claws.

"Gaomon, you… you digivolved!"

"Yes, I did."

"Save ViElecmon, will you?"

Gaogamon nodded, turning around and running towards the enemy digimon just as he was about to strike the purple and yellow rabbit. "Dash Double Claw!" he yelled, unleashing energy against Shurimon in the form of an x created with his front claws.

Just as that attack hit, Chrysalimon attacked with a technique of his own, lodging his knives into Shurimon. "Data Crusher!" With the combined weight of the two attacks, the digimon disintegrated into data.

"Vi, are you alright!" Kyle yelled, running down the side of the ditch they were fighting in. Then he looked around the battleground, and upon seeing that there was drying lava in some spots among other things, gave a comment. "Man, you guys really did a number on this place."

"No kidding. Let's just get out of here before the fog dissipates!" Diego exclaimed. "We can ride Gaogamon. Get on." Kyle did so, putting an exhausted ViElecmon in between him and Diego as they ran out or flew out.

* * *

"So, tell me why we're here right now?" ViElecmon heard Kyle ask Diego as he woke up.

"Well, just so you can see what we get for working for the government," the portly boy replied. "Plus, we can help your partner to recover quicker. I'm just wondering, why didn't you go into the field with us?"

"Because I figured I didn't need to," Kyle replied. ViElecmon opened his eyes slightly to see that they were in a hangar with numerous airplanes about. "That way I'm not putting myself in any unnecessary danger and because I could see what my partner sees through the digivice, I could decide what my partner should do from where I was at."

"Let me guess, the last time you dealt with a bioemergence, that Duskmon threatened you," Gunther said.

_Oh great, Duskmon. Yeah, that was an interesting battle, even though I don't remember most of it. It was all Kyle's fault that… _

ViElecmon's thoughts were interrupted when they walked into a door and down a dark hallway. That and he heard a girl's voice.

"Wow, you brought friends, huh? Oh, wait, is that that Kyle guy I almost played against.

ViElecmon lifted his head to look at the girl. It was that one Marika girl from the tournament.

Kyle was slightly taken aback by the girl's appearance. "Oh, hi, um, your name's Maria right?"

"Marika. Maria is the Spanish version of my name. I'm Czech."

"Oh, I'm Russian."

"Russian… with a name like Kyle I'd think you were American or something. So, how about we have a match to decide who's the rightful city champ, huh?" The brown-haired boy was getting somewhat irritated since she was poking his chest.

"I left my tournament deck at home and I doubt you'd want to play against a combination of my tamer deck and about three booster packs worth of cards I bought earlier today. I think I have only one Rookie in the entire bunch of cards and that's a Strabimon."

"Oh, okay, if you don't want to be adventurous," the girl replied, before looking at and running up to Gunther. "Ooh, nice muscles!" she exclaimed while feeling them.

"Oh, thanks, I've been working out," Gunther said, not knowing what else to say. The next sound any of them heard was Diego clearing his throat loudly.

"Come on, we don't have all day," he told the two of them. Kyle was just ahead of them. Then he pressed on, muttering something in Spanish under his breath about how he seemed to be the only one responsible around there.

The next room they were in had a number of glass chambers and technicians wandering around it. "Just so you know, this area is absolutely top secret. Don't tell anybody about it," Diego told Kyle and Gunther.

"Got it," Kyle replied.

"Now, to heal your partner, just put him here on the table and hook him up. He'll be healed using excess digital matter that this computer sucks up every so often."

Kyle thought about that for a second. "Wait, you mean that he'll be healed using the data of dead digimon?"

"No, the system actually sorts that data out and sends the digimon data to the digital world so that hopefully it can be reconfigured. Of course, the only people that actually ever went to the digital world never mentioned anything about there being a village of beginnings there so it might all be for nothing but you never know."

"Okay, that's a relief."

"So, you never met any Echelon agents before coming here, huh?" Diego asked while leaning on the edge of a table.

"Nope," Kyle messed around with his digivice.

"Where'd you live?" Marika asked, leaning against a pillar.

"Denver, Colorado. There were two other tamers with me, two of my best friends actually, though there were other tamers in town. I guess we just kind of covered our own area in case there were digimon who came over from the other side."

"What were their partners?" Gunther inquired.

"My friend Steven had a Ryudamon and his brother Jake had a Lucemon."

"Lucemon, huh? How strong was he?" Marika asked with a smile.

"Strong enough to delete any enemy digimon we came across in one hit. Believe me, I had to get to the emergence site before he did, otherwise there wouldn't have been any enemy digimon to deal with. Thankfully we had a rule against fighting them when they aren't hostile, but still."

Gaomon shuddered. "I've heard a story about a Lucemon. They're extremely rare and the one I heard about was evil."

Kyle chuckled a little bit. "Yeah, well, you don't have to worry about this one. Jake's too innocent to corrupt him and the digimon seems pretty clueless to begin with."

Just then, someone else walked into the room. He was a tall, muscular, black man with no hair, sunglasses, and a black suit. The man eyed the group before speaking. "I see you found both the mysterious other tamer _and_ the academy student."

"Wait, what? How'd you figure that out?" Gunther practically exclaimed.

"Yes, Gunther, your friends from the academy told me that you were their teammate. However, according to your other friend who escaped a few weeks ago, you never gave into the brainwashing. Unfortunately, we are having trouble tracking down your parents and it turns out that after your kidnapping, they took out their grief by leaving Germany. Do you have any idea where they are?"

"Beats me, though I know they had a timeshare in Italy," Gunther replied.

"So, since we've found you tamers, do you want to work for Echelon or not?" The director asked.  
"I will," Gunther said. "I already said I would and this would probably get me a little spending money."

"Kyle?"

"I'll join as well. I'm sure that after we get to know each other, the Mexican guy and I will get along just fine," the brown-haired teen responded and got the wrath of an angry Diego.

"For the last time, I'm not Mexican!" the boy exclaimed.

"Italian?" Gunther asked.

"No."

"Spanish?"

"I'm of Spanish ancestry but my parents actually came here from Chile."

"Sorry about that. I just thought you were a really light-skinned Mexican," Kyle said.

"Nope, and I've never even been there," Diego responded. His temper seemed to have cooled off a bit.

"Now, let's change the subject from Diego's ambiguous ethnicity to our two new members," the director ordered. "First of all, Kyle, how long have you been a digimon tamer?"

"Two years," he responded.

The director smiled. "Two years, huh? That's almost directly after the D-Reaper crisis. I'm assuming you can reach Ultimate?"

"Oh, no."

"What are your partner's evolved forms?"

Kyle took a deep breath. "BurningConejomon, ShockConejomon, Appamon, GuerrillaLeomon, and ArmoredAppamon, all armors."

"So you never reached champion?"

Kyle smiled uneasily. "Not quite."

"'Not quite?'"

"Armors are technically champions. I first experimented with Appamon to reach emergence sites quickly enough, though before discovering him I discovered the other two forms."

"But no straight champion-level digivolutions?"

Kyle paused for a second before answering. "No."

* * *

A/N: Next chapter will involve another female character joining the team. Oh, and there will be some discussion about the TV Show in the Tamers' universe. In other words: what was their Season 3 like? That's something you never see in fanfiction. No seriously. Besides, I actually wrote up the very last scenes of the fictional season that aired already (production was halted due to a giant pig rampaging though Shinjuku (that really happened in canon). Oh, and they never aired the remaining episodes so they were stuck with half a season ending on a cliffhangar).

Anyway… until next time. Oh, and kudos to who gets the reference for two of the armored forms. Oh, and guess the digimentals required.

Oh, and a note on the gratuitous Russian used in this chapter: if anyone who speaks Russian reads this and finds an error, please let me know. I spliced the attack names together using WordReference and my knowledge of Russian grammar.


	3. The Girl with the Lunamon

Chapter 3: The Girl with the Lunamon

* * *

A/N: Don't own, don't sue.

* * *

Images went through his mind, unsettling ones. He remembered the academy with its bare grey walls, its blank students with the notorious focus-inducing headbands on their heads, the extremely dense assignments and he realized it would last for the next fifteen hours with the exception of a few food and bathroom breaks.

"Remember, you will be with us, forever," a white-haired man wearing a robe said at the front of the room. "You are our weapons."

He looked to the side and saw the female headmaster, her hair tied neatly in a bun. "You will never escape again. We'll be sure of it."

He looked to the other side and saw Kyle, Diego, Marika and his former, blond-haired roommate from the academy, blank expressions on their faces.

He woke up, hyperventilating and sweating. He looked across the dark room and could barely make out Keramon hanging from the ceiling like he likes to sleep.

"Great, another dream," Gunther whispered, rubbing the sweat off his forehead. He got up and walked over to the window, peaking over the shades to look out over the street. The streetlamps were still lit. Then again, Las Vegas _was_ a twenty-four hour town.

After a slight lookout for academy freaks, he checked the alarm clock. It was 3:34 a.m. Gunther realized that with his heartbeat up so high he wouldn't be able to go back to bed for awhile, so he put on some pants and snuck out of the room, walking gently across the hallway and into Kyle's room. He grabbed the guy's laptop and brought it with him into his own room, hooking its charging cable into the wall before turning it on. He set his alarm clock so that it would go off at 7:00 a.m., giving him more than enough time to put it back in Kyle's room before the guy notices.

Once he turned the computer on, he checked his email. It turned out he got an email from his former roommate at the academy.

_Hey, Gunther! It's me, Andrew. I got your message and it turns out that I'm actually in town for the next couple of days. You do remember that I'm from Vegas, right?_

_ Oh, by the way, ever since escaping I've been working on a bit of a project. It turns out that a game maker/engine went open source and I've just been working with the code a bit. It was badly organized but I seem to have gotten it worked out, turning it into a bunch of little projects in Visual Studio that connect to one big project. I want you to check it out. The code's in Visual Basic and I know you prefer C++ but you might be able to do something with it, especially since we learned that language at the academy (along with a bunch of other languages and their libraries, right? I wish I had a focus band while I was in school). The source is here. I've mainly been working on the editor, but if you feel like improving and debugging the engine, go ahead. Just tell me what changes you made so that I can tell the people on the forum for that software. Or better yet, get an account on the forums and mention your update._

_ Speaking of school, since getting out of the academy, I got my GED (much to my parents' chagrin). Oh, and I going to try to set-up a computer business now, though I'm here visiting friends at the moment. Maybe we can meet up. I'm here till Friday._

_ BTW, I participated in a digimon tournament on Saturday and lost in the first round. Shoutmon's still livid about that one._

Upon seeing that, Gunther downloaded the source and sent Andrew a reply, saying that they should meet if not tomorrow, then the next day. For the next three hours, he messed with the RPG Developer source code, rooting out several bugs from the code that he found out about on the website for the source code, testing it out, and moving onto the next bugs. He also had to deal with some nasty spaghetti code as well as the fact that the original programmer thought it fitting to name important variables things like 'a' instead of 'tileLayer,' which would have been far more appropriate.

Then his alarm went off and he shut the computer down, sneaking it into Kyle's room. He felt hungry so he put a shirt on and went downstairs to grab some breakfast. He was surprised to find Kyle's dad eating pancakes at the dinner table as soon as he got downstairs. Kyle's mom was also in the kitchen, cleaning up.

"Oh, hello, Gunther. What are you doing up this time of morning?" he asked. Kyle's dad looked quite a bit different from him and spoke with a trace of an Eastern-European accent. He had short black hair and a black moustache that reminded Gunther of some sort of giant caterpillar. The middle-aged man was also wearing a pilot's uniform for one of the local airlines.

"Had a bad dream."

"About that academy place?"

"Yeah…" The previous night, Gunther managed to open up to Kyle's parents about what he was doing there in the country. The parent were surprisingly accepting of his answers, partially basing their reasoning on their son's support and also on the fact that they both had monsters from another world, meaning that just about anything could be possible anymore. "Kyle was in the academy, too."

"Don't worry. I'm sure that if you have to deal with those guys again, you'll beat them."

Gunther smiled. "Thanks."

"If you need to talk, don't hesitate to talk to me or my wife."

"Okay, thanks."

After that, he ate breakfast while chatting with Kyle's dad and then went back to sleep. He didn't wake up until several hours later when Kyle came into the room. "You ready for the day?"

Gunther groggily got up. "Yeah, I'm ready."

"You look like you got hit by a truck," Kyle remarked while leaning against the wall.

"Yeah, had a nightmare and then couldn't get back to sleep. Oh, and I already ate breakfast."

"So, that's why you slept in your clothes." Kyle chuckled a little bit. "Just kidding with you. So, we're going to meet Marika at her house for this mission in an hour."

Gunther forced himself into a seating position. "And how do you think we'll be doing that?"

Kyle showed the German a card that had a picture of a digimon that looked like it was fading into non-existence. The card said 'Cloaking Field' on top. "This is one of the cards I got from a booster yesterday. I tested it out on ViElecmon this morning."

Then Gunther heard a voice out of nowhere. "Yeah, and you can bet I'm here, watching your every move!"

The large, brown-haired boy jumped back in fright. "Are you kidding me? What are the effects in the card game for that card?"

"Oh, your opponent can't attack you during his next turn. You know, next to useless unless you absolutely have to survive just one more turn. Though, for situations like these when we need to get across town without anyone seeing us, it'll work just fine."

Gunther got up. "Alright. So let's go, then."

Kyle smiled and ViElecmon rematerialized in front of him. "Well, I'm glad that's over. It was getting kind of ridiculous when you guys weren't noticing me."

* * *

After a few minutes, they walked out the back door of the house into Kyle's backyard. "Okay, so now what?" Gunther asked.

"We use Appamon."

"Appamon?"

"You know, one of my armor forms. Yeah…" ViElecmon replied.

"So, can I use armor forms, Gunther?" Keramon asked, perching on the German's shoulder.

"You already have Chysalimon. Why would you need to?"

"Come on, it'll be fun!"

Kyle pulled out his deck, and then grabbed the cards that he needed, the aforementioned Cloaking Field card and the Digimental of Light. He then put the deck back into the holder on his belt. ViElecmon, knowing the drill, walked to the center of the yard a distance away from the two tamers and other digimon. "Okay, Digi-Modify! Armor Digivolution!"

"ViElecmon armor digivolve to… Appamon!"

Appamon was a large, white bison with six legs and a long, wide tail. He also had a pair of horns and the crest of light on his forehead. In addition, there was a carriage on top of him that passengers could ride on.

"Wait, so ViElecmon can turn into this big hairy thing?" Gunther asked in amazement. "I mean, he was already a mammal, but…"

"Armor digivolving is weird!" Keramon exclaimed.

"Yup, and believe it or not, this guy's gonna be our transportation across town," Kyle said.

"Okay, how exactly does this guy fly?" Gunther asked.

Kyle just shrugged and got on the digimon. "Beats me."

Gunther was at first kind of nervous about getting on the digimon, at least until the digimon spoke. "Hey, are you gonna get on or what? I don't have all day and I don't particularly like this form."

With that, the muscular boy climbed onto the hairy beast and into the carriage along with Keramon. "We get to go for a ride!" the alien digimon exclaimed.

"That's for sure," Gunther replied as the flying bison shook its tail and flew off into the air just as Kyle slashed his cloaking field card to avoid being seen by the neighbors.

* * *

Marika didn't know what to expect when she heard a knock on the door. Nobody ever came to her apartment. Also, nobody knew where she lived. Besides, she was planning on leaving in a few minutes to meet the others at the Galleria Mall in Henderson for their mission.

Those were just a few of the reasons she was surprised to see the two newest members of her team at the front door along with their digimon. "Hey, Marika, how's it going?" Kyle greeted as soon as the girl opened the door.

"Oh, hey, um, what are you guys doing here?" she asked.

"Well, we just thought it would be nice to pick you up for the mission."

"Pick me up? I didn't know you had a car."

"He ain't got one," ViElecmon quipped from Kyle's shoulder. "Unless you count me as a car."

Marika's face all the sudden had a confused expression. "Wait, I thought you couldn't digivolve?"

"Uh, I can armor digivolve, remember? Weren't you there when they went over all my forms last night?" the dark rabbit asked.

"Oh yeah. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any of your armor digivolutions before. Heck, I had no idea you could armor digivolve."

"Any digimon can armor digivolve. It's just that those season 2 digimon do it more than anyone else."

"Hm, figures. Then again, didn't Izzy use the digi-egg of courage once in season 3?"

Kyle thought about that for a second. "I remember that episode. It was episode 6, I believe. Didn't they go through a field set up by the bad guys that didn't allow digivolution? I do have to wonder what he was doing with Davis' digimental in the first place. Then again, at that point, most of the digi-destined had been captured."

Gunther looked at the duo. "You know, the only series I watched all the way through was Adventure. How much of Tamers did you actually watch?"

"All the way through. Well, every available episode, anyway. They cancelled the series just as it was getting good simply because a giant pig attacked Tokyo. Great, they were about to reveal the identities of the original digi-destined, too."

Gunther was in shock. "What! You mean that they show the five from the end of Adventure?"

"Well, you see the skeleton of one of them and then they finally show a live one. It turned out he was the only one still alive and he had the crest of friendship on his stasis pod. Though they didn't have time to explain why they were in stasis. I wouldn't be surprised if their intent was to lead into a fourth season that starred the original team of digidestined."

Then Marika spoke. "That would have been interesting. Too bad they would have probably revealed the entire plot of the season by means of this original digidestined of friendship. Anyway, I guess we better get going." The girl moved past Kyle and Gunther after locking her door.

"So, you're not going to invite us in or anything?" Gunther asked, following the dark girl and her partner.

"Marika never has anybody over," Plotmon told the German.

"Oh, is that the case?"

"By the way, we don't have to pay for bus tickets. We can just use Appamon," Kyle told the girl.

Marika turned around. "Oh, yeah, duh. Sorry, my mind's a bit of a blank right now," the girl responded.

* * *

They made it to Henderson in record time. The suburb was on the far southeast of town and was also the second largest city in the state. Of course, since they had already met at Marika's house, they didn't really need to go straight to the Galleria Mall, but they all agreed that it would be a good place to start the search for the other tamer.

Appamon landed and devolved in front of the south entrance to the mall, as soon as the team disembarked. Once all that was over, the trio decided to check their digivices' radar system, to disturbing results.

"Okay, there are far too many digivice signals on here," Marika commented as soon as she checked her holographic screen.

"That can only mean one thing: the Dark Academy is here," Gunther said with venom in his voice.

"Dark Academy? You mean they actually call themselves that?" Marika asked in surprise.

"No, that's just a cheesy nickname my roommate and I thought up for the place," the German replied, walking into the mall.

"Man, talk about complicating things," ViElecmon commented, following his partner.

"No kidding. Any suggestions, Marika?" Kyle asked the girl.

"Simple, we look for any digivice signals belonging to someone that's surrounded by non-tamers. That would be my best bet."

"But what if the tamer's a dude?" Kyle asked.

"What? Guys don't go shopping together?"

"Not usually."

"Guys, let's just keep moving forward," Gunther said as his voice lowered into a whisper. "I recognize a few from the academy. I'm afraid they might be watching us."

Marika shuddered. "Okay, if we get into a fight, let's try our best to take it outside. It seems like a pretty busy shopping day. In the meantime, can we stop by Hot Topic or something?"

"Hot Topic? Man, that store scared me as a kid," Kyle commented, causing Marika to roll her eyes.

"Okay, but if you don't want to go to Hot Topic, then you can't go to any stupid video game store or anything."

"Ooh, Transformers!" Marika heard Gunther exclaim as they passed a toy store, much to her embarrassment.

* * *

Claire was walking around with her friends at the mall, holding a couple of bags of clothes. However, the blonde girl had a strange feeling that someone was watching her. It was at times like this when she wished she had Lunamon with her since she had left her partner at home.

She had to laugh when she saw a black-haired girl and a boy with extremely short brown hair pulling this taller, muscular guy away from a toy store.

"What's up with you, Claire?" one of her friends, a brunette with her hair in a pony-tail asked.

"Oh, nothing. Do you get the feeling that we're being followed?" the blonde asked.

"Yeah, I saw this one guy just staring at us. I think we should get out of here and go home or something."

"I know. We could go to the movies or something. I hear there's this really good movie out right now," another one of her friends, a curly-haired African-American girl, suggested.

They walked past the odd trio at the toy store and towards the exit.

* * *

"Gunther, we're on a mission! Let's be serious!" Marika ordered him.

"Sheesh, you were the one that wanted to go to Hot Topic!" ViElecmon commented from Kyle's shoulder before whispering "Hypocrite."

"Okay, okay, I get it," Gunther said, checking his digivice. "There's someone in that group of girls that has a digivice." He pointed to a quartet consisting of a blonde, a brunette, a black girl and a red-head.

"Reminds me of some sort of blonde joke. Want to hear it?" ViElecmon asked.

"No!" all three tamers said at once.

"I do!" Keramon said from Gunther's backpack.

"Um, Keramon, you're not supposed to talk," the German told his partner.

"Oh, how come ViElecmon can talk, huh?"

"Let's just go after this chick, okay?" Marika said, rushing off with Plotmon, Kyle and Gunther going after her, both well aware of the eyes around the mall.

* * *

A figure started to walk towards the tamers. He had a green monkey sitting on his shoulder that was wearing a leopard-skin toga. The figure realized that this was going to be his one chance to get away from the academy and he had to make sure everything happened according to plan.

The other academy students started to converge on the door as soon as the local team of tamers left the building. None of them knew the plan that one of the tamers had in store for them.

* * *

"Great, it looks like she's leaving with her friends," Marika commented once they exited the building. "At this rate, we'll never get to ask her if she wants to join."

Kyle didn't seem so down. "Don't worry, I'm sure we can catch up with her using Appamon. Which one do you think it is?"

"Beats me."

"Guys, we have company!" Gunther yelled. In front of the building were five tamers: a blonde girl with a ponytail wearing a yellow top and a pink skirt, a black guy with short, curly hair and wearing an all black outfit, a dark-skinned guy with short hair and a large nose wearing a red shirt and blue slacks, a red-haired girl with an orange top and blue jeans and a black-haired guy wearing a tight black shirt and beige slacks.

Automatically recognizing everyone they were up against as academy tamers, Gunther held out his digivice and yelled out: "Digivolution Activate!" just as his partner jumped out of his backpack.

"Keramon digivolve to… Chrysalimon!"

"Okay, Chrysalimon, Academy Defeat Plan!"

"Got it!" Chysalimon charged forward to behind the team of enemy tamers and sliced at their back pockets where their relay devices would normally be.

"What was that?" Marika asked.

"Simple, I just removed their way of getting back to the academy in case of escape. Now we just need to defeat them. I did this the other day with the group of tamers that attacked the tournament, you know, though then I simply stole the devices and tossed them in a trashcan."

Kyle smiled, "Good work."

"It's a shame that the academy will still know where we are from our last location," the black-haired boy said emotionlessly with a slight trace of an accent. "Gabumon, digivolution activate!"

"Gabumon digivolve to… Garurumon!'

"Palmon, digivolution activate!" the blonde girl with the ponytail exclaimed.

"Palmon digivolve to… Togemon!"

"Koemon digivolution activate!" the black boy exclaimed.

"Koemon digivolve to… Hanumon!"

"Dracomon, digivolution activate!" the dark-skinned boy yelled.

"Dracomon digivolve to… Coredramon!" The digimon became the green form of the dragon digimon.

"Otamamon, digivolution activate!" the red-headed girl yelled.

"Otamamon digivolve to… Geckomon!"

"Wow, five on three. What odds. This is going to be fun," Marika commented. "Digivolution activate!"

"Plotmon digivolve to… Darcmon!"

Kyle smiled as well. Then he pulled out his deck, easily found the two cards he wanted, and put the deck back. "Digi-modify!" He slid the first card: The Digimental of Courage and then using a fancy little finger trick, slashed the second card: The Digimental of Friendship. "Double Armor Digivolution!"

"Elecmon Double Armor Digivolve to… GuerrillaLeomon!" GuerrillaLeomon was a large digimon that resembled GrapLeomon in form but was wearing an entirely camouflaged outfit from head to toe and had a massive gun with a long magazine of bullets attached to it as well as another gun on his back.

The black guy took out his digivice and checked it.

_GuerrillaLeomon_

_ Armor Level (Double)_

_ Beast Man Digimon_

_ Virus Attribute_

_ Attacks: Ametralladora, Plasma Cannon_

_ Good thing I decided to be on their side. I just need to get the rest away from here so that we don't get captured by the academy again. _"Hanumon, let's go after the girl tamer that we are looking for." The tamer and his digimon ran off, avoiding the two local tamers' partners.

"Darcmon, let's go after him. Kyle and Gunther can take on the rest," Marika ordered and her digimon nodded as they ran after the surprisingly swift enemy tamer and his partner. The other enemy tamers were not amused.

"Quick, go after them. It's obvious that he's not going by my orders," the dark-skinned enemy tamer, obviously the leader, told the group and so they moved forward with GuerrillaLeomon and Chrysalimon following them. After running about fifty feet, Kyle and Gunther spotted a vortex of data forming right where the tamers were before running.

"You know, I think that the African guy knew what he was doing," Gunther suggested.

"Looks like it," Kyle replied. "I'm just glad that we didn't get stuck in that thing."

* * *

The Academy Headmistress wasn't pleased. It seemed that the gray-haired woman potentially lost yet another team of tamers. This was just as bad as those disasters when they sent a group of tamers after that kid with the Lucemon and later on against the Academy escapee with the Shoutmon who could already reach Ultimate.

She was thinking that they would have to plan out their missions better next time. It was obvious that the runaway the team was going up against already had the whole situation planned out. Then again, there were only three local tamers not including the girl they were after so they shouldn't be a problem. That is, they shouldn't be a problem unless one of them goes to Ultimate.

She didn't take into account the betrayal from one of her own, even though that possibility crossed her mind.

* * *

Claire was busy chatting with her friends on the way home from the mall when they all stopped. In front of them was a man wearing a mask and a hood. "Okay, what's the big idea?" the girl's black friend asked.

"Well, hello Cynthia, my name is Blaine. I'm actually not here to harm any of you if that's what you think"

"Okay, what are you here for?" Claire asked.

"In case you haven't noticed, there's a digimon battle happening right now at the mall that you have just left. I actually have a friend of yours with me."

With that, a familiar white rabbit with two sets of long ears decorated in blue, one set sticking right up while the larger, thicker set hung on the sides of the digimon's ears. The digimon also had a pink ribbon on her chest with the moon in the center.

"Lunamon?" Claire asked in surprise.

"Wait, you're a Digimon Tamer?" Claire's brunette friend asked.

"Uh, yes, I guess I am. I only met Lunamon yesterday."

"That is so weird," Cynthia commented. "But if you want to go fight some giant enemy digimon, then go ahead."

"Wait, so you aren't mad?"

"Why would we be?" Cynthia replied. "Now, just go save the day like you're supposed to."

"What do I have to do?" Claire asked the mysterious man in front of her.

"Just stand next to me and I'll take us back to the mall," Blaine said. Claire complied and stood next to him after picking up her digimon. The man pulled out a small handheld device and typed in a few things on it. Claire found it odd that the device, which appeared to be a small computer, didn't have buttons on it. In fact, it was a touch-screen. "Don't gawk at this. Touch screen devices will be far more common in a couple of years. Oh, and you others might want to get back."

Suddenly, mist spilled out of nowhere and then collapsed into nothing. Not even the girl, the digimon, or the mysterious man remained.

"Should we have let her go with that guy? He was kind of creepy," the brunette said.

* * *

The girl found herself falling through a blue tunnel. "Don't worry, after the first couple of times, you get used to this," Blaine told the girl as he fell with her. "It'll be over right about… now!"

The tamers just about had a nervous breakdown when their digivices started to beep and a dome of mist came into being right where they were. Said dome of mist contracted into nothing, leaving just the girl with the Lunamon.

"Okay, how'd you do that?" Gunther asked.

"Oh, some weird guy named Blaine took me here," Claire said. She was behind the main battle with some big, muscular guy and a Chrysalimon. "Hey, you were in the mall, weren't you?"

"Uh, yeah, let's just get this battle over with and then we can talk. The name's Gunther by the way."

"Gunther? You mean like the guy with the mullet and the ugly mustache from Europe?"

Gunther just rolled his eyes at the thought of some Swedish guy's stage name. Why did some weirdo have to have his name and sing about bikinis and ding dongs? He thought the pastries tasted good but why sing about them? "Let's not talk about him. Chrysalimon!"

"Yep?"

"Go after Togemon!"

The black tamer realized that a second digital field had appeared. Using this, he turned around. "Okay, Hanumon, bypass the local tamers and attack Garurumon!"

His partner moved ahead, dodging attacks from both Darcmon and GuerrillaLeomon. He did so without question and yet he knew that something was up. It was obvious that his tamer wasn't as brainwashed as he seemed and that he was merely biding time to escape from the academy's clutches.

Kyle and Marika caught up to the black guy. "As you can tell, you locals, I'm on your side," the guy said with a grin.

"Oh, okay… um…" Kyle was only half surprised.

"Uh, anyway, let's just finish this fight!" Marika exclaimed, resisting the urge to check out the black guy.

"Yeah, before they send any reinforcements. The name's Vincent, by the way!"

"Good to meet you," the girl said.

The team looked to see Chrysalimon and Togemon head to head, the viral digimon winning. GuerrillaLeomon was shooting his gun off at Coredramon, the digimon barely dodging the attacks. Garurumon was having to take on Hanumon and Darcmon was fighting Geckomon and his annoying sound attacks.

Chysalimon had to figure out how to defeat Togemon without getting a ton of splinters inside of him. He also had to dodge a couple of Needle Sprays from the giant, walking cactus. Unfortunately, he couldn't dodge one of them and had a bunch of needles stuck in his face.

"Is there any way I can help?" Claire asked.

"Uh," Gunther thought about it for a second and looked through his card deck. "Use this card, specifically the Metal Fireball attack."

"Gotcha! Card Slash! SkullMeramon's Metal Fireball!"

Immediately, Lunamon was covered in blue flame and launched a flaming sphere at Togemon who received the attack head-on and caught on fire. This allowed Chrysalimon the opportunity to strike.

"Data Crusher!" the cocoon yelled, launching his knives at the flaming cactus and defeating it, causing it to fall to the ground and devolve back into Palmon.

At the same time, Darcmon was trying to prevent herself from succumbing to Geckmon's Symphony Crusher attack. She eventually makes it right in front of him and slices the frog across the chest with La Pucelle, causing the digimon to collapse and devolve back into Otamamon.

"Ugh, I'm glad that's over," she said, turning around to spot GuerrillaLeomon dodging an attack by Coredramon and unleashing a Plasma Cannon against him, causing him to revert in the process.

"I see you're done, too," the large humanoid lion said.

"Sure am. Let's go see if the others need any help."

Garurumon was doing a farely good job against Vincent's partner. He unleashed his Howling Blaster attack against the agile ape and Hanumon dodged, getting out of the way just in time and then strike. "Mega Bone Stick!" the yellow ape yelled, striking Garurumon on the head and then on the body, causing the digimon to collapse as well and join the others.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," Kyle said, wiping the sweat off his forehead. Apparently it was another hot day.

"You will not get away with defying the academy," the dark-skinned boy among the enemy tamers said before charging Kyle. Luckily, Gunther intercepted him before he could do any damage and hit him in several places, knocking him out.

Kyle simply stood there with a really surprised look on his face. "Okay, I had no idea that I was that much of a target. Thanks for the save, man!"

"No, problem."

* * *

A few minutes later, a group of Echelon agents showed up to pick up the academy tamers except for Vincent, who simply went with the other tamers in another vehicle. The tamers talked on the way to Echelon's base about the various things in life and the two new ones introduced themselves.

"The name's Vincent and I'm from Detroit!"

"Good to finally get an introduction," Gunther said before scratching his head. "So, um, where's Detroit at, anyway?"

"You don't know where Detroit, Michigan is?" Claire asked in shock.

"No, I'm not even American."

"It's the state that looks like a giant mitten," Kyle said. "You know, around the great lakes area. Maybe I should show you an atlas when we get home. Then again, I don't know where half the places are in Europe." He chuckled slightly.

"So yeah, I'm Claire and this is Lunamon. We've been partners for like a day now."

"Good to meet you. It'll be nice having another girl on the team, if you decide to join at least," Marika stated matter-of-factly.

"Hey, what's wrong with having a bunch of guys around?" Kyle asked.

"Do _you_ ever want to get your nails done?" After Kyle shook his head, she continued. "I didn't think so."

"So, is there anyone here that's actually from Vegas?" Vincent finally asked.

"I am," Claire said, raising her hand.

"I'm from California," Marika stated.

"Colorado," Kyle said.

"Deutschland," Gunther said.

"Man, why are all the tamers imported or something?" Vincent asked, eliciting shrugs from the group.

"My friend Andrew's from here," Gunther said. "He moved away, though he's in town right now."

"Wait, there's another tamer in town right now and you didn't tell us?" Kyle asked. "I could have stayed home."

"Nah, we know about him. He only works for Echelon if an Ultimate or higher level digimon appears which never happens," Marika said.

"Hey, I was just kidding, anyway. I actually kind of like this job better than I thought I would."

Gunther chuckled and then asked Vincent something. "So, what are your plans now? Going back home?"

"Nope, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. I lived in a pretty bad section of town and I don't really want to go back unless I have to. Too many unpleasant memories. Then again, if I have to go back, I'll probably just get my GED and then have the government send me to a fancy college with them paying for most of my education. Either that or I'd pay for it by fighting evil digimon in whatever town I go to."

"What do you want to go to school for?"

"I don't know. I kind of want to be a teacher or something. Or maybe I'll start a giant business and try to make a difference. I was thinking of trying to start a school for troubled kids in Detroit. Oh, and I'd use this." Vincent held up the headband-like device that Gunther remembered from the academy and, more recently, his dream the night before.

"One of those things… Why did you bring it along?"

"Seriously, these things are genius. If I had this in elementary school, I'd have had straight A's. Now seriously, the idea of focusing only on a couple of things at a time and then having instant recall of those things for later is an awesome concept. I think a big reason a lot of kids don't do well in school today is because they can't focus. Now, if I brought this to some rich corporation and had them figure out how to make more of these things, I'd make a fortune. Either that or they'd just steal my idea. So, how come you're not going back to Germany?"

"Well, my parents kind of disappeared off the face of the earth for starters and even though I could go and live with my grandparents, there are some people around there I don't really want to see again. One of them basically left me to the mercy of a bunch of academy tamers and escaped."

"That's rough, man," Vincent replied. "I was just cornered in a back alley by them."

"What I've noticed is that they somehow got a hold of my modified Shaggai program and that they use it to go around the world instantaneously. I mean, how?"

"You mean kind of like how that Blaine guy transported me a couple of blocks back to the mall?" Claire inquired.

"You mean Blaine helped you?" Marika asked, incredulously. "That guy hired German boy's team against us a few days ago."

"Blaine? As in Blaine who gave the Academy those headband thingies?" Gunther asked. "That guy gives the academy technology as payment for jobs. I hear he sent a group of tamers after some random guy in Los Angeles for some reason and gave them a whole bunch of gym equipment."

"But, man, that guy helped you by sending Claire back to the Galleria. Who's side is he on?" Vincent asked no one in particular.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Ezekiel read over the report of that day's activities, in shock at what it said about Blaine. He wanted to find him but so far, he hasn't had any clue as to who he was or his whereabouts.

Now, though, he had an idea, so he wandered to the mainframe room in the local Echelon base and made a request for the two women currently monitoring digital activities. "Hello, ladies, I have something to ask of you. I need you to search the logs for any recent use of a program similar Shaggai or a program that seems to use the digital plane for long distance travel."

"Alright, I am doing a database scan right now," one of the women, a red-haired girl, said. "Okay, got it!"

Ezekiel gasped when he saw the lines. There were a number of them going across the Las Vegas valley and stopping in places such as the location of the tournament from that weekend. The trenchcoat-wearing tamer scratched his chin. "Any idea where any of these things go?"

"Most of them seem to use some sort of masking technology to cause the signal to be lost a hundred miles out of town," the second girl, a Filipino, said. "However, the one used today, apparently by Blaine, ends just outside of Japan."

"He's Japanese but he's not telling us who he is… Blaine, just who are you? _If_ that is your real name…"

* * *

That question was still on his mind later on when he was walking home. At least until he spotted a small red reptile with ears in a v-shape wandering his neighborhood. Since he had Dobermon with him, he felt obligated to take care of the small digimon that seemed to have escaped detection. He checked his digivice for info on the digimon.

_Shoutmon_

_ Rookie Level_

_ Vaccine Attribute_

_ Attacks: Rock Damashi, Soul Crusher, Rowdy Rocker_

Unfortunately, he didn't know that the digimon belonged to a tamer. He just figured that it was a rogue digimon that needed to be taken care of. "Dobermon, get him."

The dog nodded and then proceeded to chase the small dragon digimon, who realized he was being followed by a potentially hostile party. The pointy-eared digimon turned around and faced the dog, which was ready to attack.

"Schwartzes Strahl!" Dobermon yelled, unleashing a blast of dark energy at the dragon, who simply pulled a stage mic out of nowhere, jumped up, and formed a ball of orange energy at the end.

"Soul Crusher!" he yelled, unleashing the attack on Dobermon, causing the digimon to be blasted back into a cinderblock wall and collapse, unconscious.

Ezekiel ran up to his partner to check if he was alright and then turned to Shoutmon. "I will not let a rogue digimon like you go loose forever."

"Rogue digimon? You're the one who attacked me!" the digimon said. "And what do you mean by rogue? I have a tamer!"

Ezekiel looked on in slight shock as the digimon left. He was a rookie. This was supposed to be an easy battle but he defeated his partner far too quickly.

* * *

Just who is Blaine?

Will Vincent stay in Vegas or will he move on?

How far will Ezekiel go to find out the identity of his nemesis?

Find out in the next chapter of Echelon: The Search

* * *

A/N: As you can tell, I turned Appa into a digimon.

I have to say, that was one difficult battle to write. I'm not fond of writing long battles and that one… well, let's just say it wasn't my best. Oh, and at first I intended to have Psychemon instead of Gabumon.

The RPG Developer program the group is working on is inspired by RPG Toolkit. It even has a lot of the same problems as the real-life game maker and has the same features. It even knocks off RPG Code (With DevCode)! Man, I need to get into programming more and maybe even make a crappy fangame based on this fic.

Funny, I seem to be updating this every two weeks. I'd prefer once a week, but at least it's getting up there, considering I don't have a computer of my own at the moment and I'm using my dad's. Maybe in a few weeks once I get enough money…


End file.
